Alex Casey introduces the fresh batch of bakers braving The Great Kiwi Bake Off tent in 2024.
Soggy bottoms at the ready, folks, it’s time for another season of the sweetest and most stressful reality competition around. The Great Kiwi Bake Off begins Thursday night at 8.30pm on TVNZ1, helmed once again by comedians Hayley Sproull and Pax Assadi with “two of the dreamiest bakers on the planet” in judges Peter Gordon and Jordan “The Caker” Rondel. They will be looking for innovation, they will be looking for personality, they will be looking for only the driest and firmest of bottoms.
So who would dare step up to this chocolatey challenge, this treacle-y test, this profiterole provocation? Allow me to introduce this year’s brave batch of bakers.
Devoney Scarfe
The Auckland artist likes to dwell in the “grey area where food meets art”, which means we can probably expect to see even more subversive creations than the time someone made a cake that looked like a giant poo. Devoney’s social media specialty appears to be extremely buzzy baked celebrity creations, including Gordon Ramsay and another with Snoop Dogg.
Sally Eagle
This wedding dress designer from Wellington has been baking her whole life, and will reveal in episode one that prettiness is everything when it comes to baking. Eagle’s baking specialty is a hand-painted cake, but how she does it with those giant talons is beyond me.
Josephine Tjandra
Josephine has a degree in food science and is a fan of creating unique flavour combinations, including her caramel soy sauce seaweed. While her degree might be impressive, she admits in episode one that, just as an architect can’t build a house, it might not be as big of a threat as it seems.
Lillian Wrigglesworth
Lillian lost her leg in an accident two years ago, and believes she wouldn’t have had the bravery to enter Bake Off had she not become an amputee. She’s also recently gotten into beekeeping, which seems about ten thousand times scarier than braving the Bake Off tent.
Josh Duncan
This fitness junkie and manifestation king recently lost 80kg and picked up a sweet tooth in the process. He says that baking is his way of showing love and appreciation to his friends and family, and we are immediately checking to see if he is taking applications for new friends and family.
Paul Dickson
The founder of Oke charity, Paul promises to be “bringing a bit of classic Brummie” to the Bake Off tent. Using baking as a form of stress relief, we can vouch after watching episode one that Paul ranks among the most chilled-out entertainers of all time.
Anna Wainwright
Oh captain, my captain! This Auckland teacher hopes that being on Bake Off inspires tamariki to take risks and follow their dreams. Her signature bake is cinnamon buns, but let’s just say Anna has a little very hungry childhood treat for viewers from the UK in episode one.
Aidan Woodward
There’s always an overachiever in every group. Aidan is a nurse and an electrician, who also nearly made it onto The Great British Bake Off back in 2012, but was dropped at the final round of casting. Looking for redemption over a decade later, rest assured Mary Berry is quaking.
Danielle Windfuhr
Just as Beethoven couldn’t hear much of his music, coeliac Danielle can’t taste most of her baking. When she’s not experimenting with alternative flours to make delicious gluten free creations, she’s playing Dungeons & Dragons. Lawful good alert!
Chantelle Reihana
Chantelle is a self-professed perfectionist who describes herself as part Jade Thirwall from The Great British Bake Off, part Martha Stewart. She’s also modelled in the World of Wearable Arts, so if we don’t get a showstopping “bizarre bra” cake at some point, heads will roll.
The Great Kiwi Bake Off screens Thursday nights on TVNZ1 and is available to stream on TVNZ+.